Sometimes it’s the little ones you gotta watch out for. At the Royal Australian Armoured Corps museum in Puckapunyal, in Victoria, Australia, there’s a still-operational Matilda tank from the Second World War. It’s among 70 specimens of this much-loved British light tank still working around the world. The Matilda was small, cramped, and it only had a two-pound main gun. But it had thick armour and worked in any conditions. The forests of France, the Lybian desert, the hills of Greece, the New Guinea jungles and the frozen steppes of Russia could not stop them. Matildas were everywhere, and they never let down their crews.
Matildas are often overshadowed by their bigger cousins: the Shermans and T-34s and Tiger tanks of later years. But those tanks were few in number in the early days. Axis tanks were small and weak. The Matilda was more than a match for anything in the German and Italian arsenal.
Few tanks have garnered as much love and admiration as the Matilda. Nicknamed “Queen of the Desert,” the Matilda Mk II was England’s premier tank from 1939 until 1942. They provided much-needed infantry support in the early years of the Second World War and were pivotal in saving Egypt from Axis conquest. The story of the Matilda is one of British ingenuity and steadfast bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, and created an endearing legacy.
Surprisingly, there were only two Matilda II tanks in existence when Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. The tank was designed as the Matilda A12 to replace the older Matilda I, which was small, had weak armour, and a terrible drivetrain. The Matilda II kept the overall same design and chassis as its predecessor, with a better six-cylinder AEC engine and six-speed pre-selector transmission that would prove to work in any conditions. However, the Matilda had slow speed, and it could not turn quickly. It kept the same 2-pounder gun as the Matilda I, but added more armour. The front glacis plate featured a whopping 78 mm of cast steel, and the front and sides were angled, giving more protection. The sides had 60 mm of armour, and even the rear had 55 mm protecting the engine. The Matilda A12 was equivalent to the Russian KV-1 in protection, a fact that its crews loved.
But the Matilda tanks had never been designed as main combat tanks. They were pure infantry tanks. An Englishman named Major-General Percy Hobart had theorized in a 1934 paper that there should be different tanks for different roles. The experience of the trenches of the Great War still hung heavily over all military planners of that time. Hobart saw the need for a light tank that could support the infantry, while heavy “battle tanks” smashed through the lines and rode off to do their thing. The first Matilda had been designed around this thinking. Its shortcoming were seen rather quickly, and only 140 were produced before the Matilda A12 took over. The new light tank was officially named the Matilda Mark II, but it would go down in history simply as “the Matilda.”
The initial order was put into the Vulcan Foundry in Lancashire, England in late 1937. The foundry had to set up its machinery for the new moulding and didn’t begin production until early 1939. There were a few bugs to iron out over the course of that year, but by August the first two Matildas had rolled off the assembly line, just in time for the beginning of the Second World War.
His Majesty’s Government found itself suddenly in desperate need of tanks. The army was using outdated Vickers II medium tanks, with bolted-on armour and weak three-pound guns. The only modern tank England had was the Matilda II, although it was designed as a light tank for supporting the infantry, not a main battle tank. Nevertheless, it would have to do, so a call for 2,000 Matilda II tanks was put out. Several firms answered and were awarded the procurement contracts, including Ruston & Hornsby, John Fowler & Co, and the London, Scottish and Midland Railway Company.
The army had 38 Matildas in France when the German invasion of the west began on 10 Mauy, 1940. The rest of England’s tanks were underpowered and older models of Vickers, and 100 Matilda Is. These older tanks were easily swept aside by the Germans in Belgium. Most broke down under the stress of combat and had to be abandoned by their crews, an issue that would plague British tank designs throughout the war. But not so the Matilda IIs.
These 38 little tanks were impervious to German guns. Panzer II and Panzer III shells bounced off the Matilda’s hulls. Only the 88mm anti-aircraft gun, with its barrel depressed to fire horizontally, could penetrate the Matilda’s armour. The English lost 12 tanks to 88s.
18 Matildas made a courageous counter-attack against Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division near Arras, over the old WWI battlefield. These 18 little tanks were completely unsupported, but they destroyed 30 German tanks, overran a supply column, and broke into the division’s rear areas and shot up Rommel’s headquarters. Rommel himself is said to have stood, staring in disbelief as a dozen of these British tanks zipped around, crushing tents and shooting holes through the walls of the house where he had set up his HQ. Rommel had to personally supervise a gun line of 88 mm flak guns to repel the attackers, who lost two tanks. The rest rode off into the sunset. All of them would be abandoned at Dunkirk.
That wouldn’t be the last time Rommel faced Matildas. He would come to respect these tanks in the deserts of North Africa, but first it would be the turn of the Italian army to face them. Matildas absolutely wrecked the Italian army in Operation Compass in late 1940. Italy had invaded Egypt with its powerful 10th Army in September 1940. They had 600 tanks, mostly Fiat M11/39 medium tanks and L3/33 tankettes. 150,000 Italians advanced into Egypt. The 10th Army’s goal was the Suez Canal.
They advanced 95 km in the first week, facing little opposition in the hot desert. England’s Coldstream Guards hid in the dunes and harassed the Italian army as guerillas during the advance, but that was about it. Italian General Italo Gariboldi, commanding the 10th Army, began to get nervous and ordered a halt to the advance just past the port of Sidi Barrani. That’s when British General Archibald Wavell, commander of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatre, chose to counter-attack.
Wavell ordered the commander of British Forces Egypt, Lieutenant-General Henry Wilson, to probe the Italians in force with a limited attack using 35,000 men and 200 tanks, including 100 Matildas. Operation Compass was designed more as a reconnaisance than an offensive, yet when the Matildas engaged the 1st and 2nd Lybian divisions dug in at Maktila, they caused havoc. The “battle of the camps” was a disaster for the Italians. Matildas caused havoc in the Italian force. Most of these tanks were with the 11th Indian Division and the Coldstream Guards, the leading elements of the British assault. The Italians fell back in a panic and the entire 10th army began to fall apart.
Wilson saw his chance and the small raid turned into a major operation. Led by Matildas, the British pushed the Italians right out of Egypt, and then continued to push them through Libya. The port of Tobruk was besieged and fell to the Australians. The Matildas drove on, right across Libya and into the mountains near Derna. There, the Italians counter-attacked with 120 tanks, 15 of which were new M13/40 tanks. A force of 80 British tanks had advanced too quickly and was without infantry or artillery support. These were mostly Matilda IIs but also some Vickers II tanks. The Italian attack hit the British group near Derna. There was no order to the battle. Tanks were driving around and firing at each other amidst clouds of desert dust. It took three hours but the British force pulled back with the loss of 12 tanks. The Italians lost 23 tanks.
This clash helped shape Allied strategy going forward, as it showed the danger of having tanks caught without support. The Matildas were ordered to stick close to their infantry units and would no longer be used as wild cavalry.
The British advance through Libya towards Benghazi continued in a much more orderly fashion after Derna. The 6th Australian Division swung south of Benghazi and blocked the Italian retreat, and the entire Italian 10th Army surrendered in early 1941.
It was this Italian disaster that forced Hitler to send help. He could ill-afford it. He was in the final stages of preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union and needed every tank he had. Yet his wayward ally, Benito Mussolini, had suffered a massive defeat in Libya. The Italians had also just been defeated by the Greeks after a failed invasion, and now Germany had to divert precious resources to yet another Italian front.
Hitler put Erwin Rommel in charge of the Afrika Korps, an expeditionary force under the nominal command of the Italians but realistically an independent force. The Korps consisted of a single regiment of Panzer IIIs and IVs stripped from the 3rd Panzer Division, along with 30,000 infantry in two divisions. The force had been assigned as a blocking force, with a simple task of stopping the English advance through Libya, but Rommel threw his tanks at the British the day they landed and the entire British western desert force fell back in disarray.
The Matildas were the only thing that stopped a disaster for the British forces. These tanks dug in and provided rearguard actions as the rest of the army retreated in good order. Time and again the Matildas would go hull-down in the desert dunes and blast away at the advancing German panzers. Then they would pull back before they could be surrounded and wiped out. Rommel couldn’t get his 88s up fast enough to engage the wily Matildas. He was losing tanks and his advanced had been slowed.
Matildas counter-attacked on several occasions when they saw the chance, often overrunning Italian and German infantry that were caught out in the open. The Germans began distributing pamphlets in German, Italian and Arabic, warning about Matildas and instructing their soldiers to not leave the protection of their anti-tank guns.
Rommel chased the English all the way back across the Libyan desert and into Egypt. There were some British counter-attacks, and Rommel’s Afrika Korps was pushed back a couple of times. The desert war became a tank war, with no real front lines. Fast-moving tanks would attack and then retreat, only to attack again, day after day. Pins on maps shifted back and forth every day. By this point, there were 1,400 Matildas in North Africa and it had become the main British tank of the entire war.
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June, 1941, Stalin suddenly became Churchill’s ally. England was producing Matildas at a fast rate by this point. Churchill sent two regiments worth of Matildas to Russia. More than 500 would follow over the next few years. Russian crews loved the Matilda, although they found it more cramped and less useful than their own T-34. But the Red Army used the Matilda as an infantry support tank and it excelled in that role. There were Matildas at Stalingrad and Kursk, and more than 100 Matildas were part of the Soviet force that captured Berlin in 1945 and ended the war.
Matildas also served in Greece. Mussolini’s army had been kicked out of Greece after an incompetent invasion. Wavell rushed 52,000 men and 100 Matildas to Greece, just in time for the Germans to arrive. Hitler had invaded Yugoslavia and kept on going south into Greece. 1,200 German panzers, 680,000 men and 20,000 paratroopers smashed into the British-Australian-Indian force that was still digging in and setting up its rear areas. Once again, the Matildas proved their worth against the Panzer IIIs and IVs. The Germans also had up-gunned Stug IIIs, with a 76 mm long-barrel gun, and finally they had something that could deal with the Matildas. Stugs managed to knock out several Matildas, while the little British two-pounder couldn’t hurt the boxy assault gun.
The Allied force fell back in a fighting retreat. Matildas were used as mobile pillboxes in Greece, setting up on hills and along valley roads to block the Germans as the rest of the army pulled back. Germany had complete air superiority over Greece and Stuka dive bombers and Ju-88 bombers knocked out 50 Matildas. The remainder were abandoned during a chaotic evacuation from the mainland dubbed “Little Dunkirk.”
German weapons were evolving and becoming more powerful. The Panzer IV was now sporting a powerful 76 mm gun, and the Panzer VI Tiger tank, with a nasty 88 mm gun, was in development. Axis tactics were adopting to the desert, and the Matildas lacked a high-explosive shell that could effectively deal with infantry. The Afrika Korps had grown to more than 100,000 men and hundreds of tanks. The Royal Air Force lost control of the skies over North Africa in late 1941, meaning British tanks could no longer operate as raiding forces. The Matilda was no longer the superior tank on the battlefield. It would slowly be replaced by M3 Lee tanks thanks to American Lend-Lease, and then M4 Shermans when America got fully into the war. But until then, Matildas began to suffer casualties at the hands of German tanks and planes.
Japan attacked Pearl Harbour on 7 December, 1941, ushering America into the Second World War, and things changed for the Matildas. Japan also attacked British and Australian holdings across the Pacific, including an invasion of New Guinea. Australia would find itself fighting for its life in the disease-ridden jungles of New Guinea against a fanatical and suicidal enemy. But Japan had few tanks, and those it did have were small and weak. Britain just so happened to have the perfect tank for this kind of fighting in the Matilda.
Matildas were shipped to the Australian army and began fighting in New Guinea in spring 1942. There they proved themselves again, moving through jungle and across swamps and rivers. They could hold the few roads that existed in this mountainous terrain and the Japanese had nothing that could deal with them. Britain supplied 400 Matildas to Australia and 133 to New Zealand during the Pacific War. They fought in New Guinea, Borneo, and Bougainville. They could drive into dense jungle and take fire from artillery at point-blank range and survive. The Australians even went one step further and converted 40 of their Matildas into flamethrower tanks, which they called “Matilda Frogs.” Matildas continued to serve with the Australian reserves until the 1960s.
There were no more Matildas in active combat with British forces by 1944. They had all been replaced by American M3 Stuart light tanks and M4 Sherman medium tanks. British Churchill heavy tanks were also becoming the main infantry tank, ending the era of the light tank. But surprisingly, Germany had several Matildas they used right up until the end of the war.
Several dozen Matildas had been captured intact by the Afrika Korps and in Greece, and these were put to use by the Wermacht. The Matildas were well-regarded by the Germans and could take punishing fire from Russian T-34 and American Sherman tanks and keep going. Romania also captured a few Matildas from the Red Army and used them effectively as an infantry support tank during the retreat out of Russia in 1943-1944.
Although a few nations continued to use Matildas into the 1950s, the tank was obsolete by war’s end and officially retired from service. Still, veterans and historians alike continued their love affair with the hardy little tank. There are 70 still in working condition today, including a dozen in Australia and 30 in the UK. India has seven, France has two, and even Russia has one fully functional Matilda.
The Matilda Mk II, with its blend of robust armor and battlefield resilience, earned its place in history as one of the standout tanks of WWII.